Neural Correlates of Beat Processing in Infancy and Their Association With Later Grammar Development: Evidence for the Atypical Rhythm Risk Hypothesis
Abstract
Infants show evidence of beat processing from birth, but its neural correlates in infancy remain poorly understood. Moreover, although rhythm and grammar abilities are closely linked in older (school-aged) children, it is not known whether individual differences in infant beat processing lay the foundations for those associations. This longitudinal EEG study examined neural correlates of beat processing in 6–12-month-old infants (N=37) and their relation to sentence comprehension skills in the same children at 4 years. We analyzed infants’ evoked time–frequency responses to rhythmic tone–tone–rest sequences presented in physically accented conditions and in inferred-beat conditions, in which accents were removed after an initial exposure phase.. Analyses revealed a significant increase in power to physically accented beats (9–24 Hz, p < .001). Individual differences in this response were positively associated with receptive grammar performance at age 4, assessed with the TROG-2 (r = .48, p = .005), and remained significant after controlling for infant age, parent education, and home music environment (β = .45, p = .011). The inferred beat effect was not related to later sentence comprehension performance. These findings indicate that infant neural activity tracks beat structure, with neural correlates broadly similar to those reported in adults, and that early neural sensitivity to beat is associated with later grammar development, supporting the Atypical Rhythm Risk Hypothesis.
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BibTeX
@misc{ladanyi2026neural,
title = {{Neural Correlates of Beat Processing in Infancy and Their Association With Later Grammar Development: Evidence for the Atypical Rhythm Risk Hypothesis}},
author = {Eniko Ladanyi and Srishti Nayak and Catherine T. Bush and Youjia Wang and Tiffany G. Woynaroski and Miriam Lense and Matthew K. Leonard and Reyna L. Gordon},
howpublished = {PsyArXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.31234/osf.io/5t47b_v1},
url = {https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/5t47b_v1/},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Neural Correlates of Beat Processing in Infancy and Their Association With Later Grammar Development: Evidence for the Atypical Rhythm Risk Hypothesis
AU - Eniko Ladanyi
AU - Srishti Nayak
AU - Catherine T. Bush
AU - Youjia Wang
AU - Tiffany G. Woynaroski
AU - Miriam Lense
AU - Matthew K. Leonard
AU - Reyna L. Gordon
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/09
PB - PsyArXiv
DO - 10.31234/osf.io/5t47b_v1
UR - https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/5t47b_v1/
AB - Infants show evidence of beat processing from birth, but its neural correlates in infancy remain poorly understood. Moreover, although rhythm and grammar abilities are closely linked in older (school-aged) children, it is not known whether individual differences in infant beat processing lay the foundations for those associations. This longitudinal EEG study examined neural correlates of beat processing in 6–12-month-old infants (N=37) and their relation to sentence comprehension skills in the same children at 4 years. We analyzed infants’ evoked time–frequency responses to rhythmic tone–tone–rest sequences presented in physically accented conditions and in inferred-beat conditions, in which accents were removed after an initial exposure phase.. Analyses revealed a significant increase in power to physically accented beats (9–24 Hz, p < .001). Individual differences in this response were positively associated with receptive grammar performance at age 4, assessed with the TROG-2 (r = .48, p = .005), and remained significant after controlling for infant age, parent education, and home music environment (β = .45, p = .011). The inferred beat effect was not related to later sentence comprehension performance. These findings indicate that infant neural activity tracks beat structure, with neural correlates broadly similar to those reported in adults, and that early neural sensitivity to beat is associated with later grammar development, supporting the Atypical Rhythm Risk Hypothesis.
ER -